Nail extractors have been customarily formed of a curved bar or hammer head shaped at its external end in the form of a claw formed with a wedge-shaped opening to receive the shank of a nail. Such devices are highly satisfactory for starting the removal of a nail, embedded into a block, utilizing the external curved surface of the bar as a fulcrum, and rotating the bar with the claw grasping the nail head. However, as the nail head is lifted above the surface of the fastened block, the claw ceases to move in the axial direction of the fastened nail and bends the nail, without further extraction. Swoger, et al, (U.S. Pat. No. 1,835,433) has designed a bar formed with a pair of claws at the terminal end of a bent bar, in which the first claw becomes the fulcrum, with the second claw employed to lift a partially removed nail.
In this invention, the bar is shaped with a first curved claw extending from the terminal end of the bar and a plurality of additional curved claws, each fastened to the bar beyond the external curved fulcrum section so that the nail may be removed with a minimum of bending of the nail, minimizing the force required and permitting reuse of the nail.